from the sexpensive dept

When you write about as many different people, groups and organizations as we do here at Techdirt, you occasionally forget to check in on some places and people occasionally. Take SGAE, for instance. It's the Spanish music collection group that has made a name for itself chiefly stealing money from artists, epitomizing corruption, and generally behaving like pain-in-the-butt asshats whenever given the opportunity. We haven't checked on SGAE in about three years or so, so I assume the group has completely turned itself around and are now a shining example of above-board behavior?

Pedro Farré, the former head of corporate relations at the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE) was handed a 30-month sentence after the National Court found him guilty of embezzlement and faking work-related documents. The judge said Farré had withdrawn cash during his jaunts to brothels, and then created "completely false" receipts, supposedly for services such as "catering" for SGAE clients which he later handed in to his employer's accounting office to claim the money back. These were submitted alongside genuine receipts to avoid arousing suspicion, the court heard.

Look, let's give some credit where credit is due: it takes a supreme set of testicles to turn in $50k worth of receipts for money spent at whorehouses and try to write them off for reimbursement. On the other hand, I don't think it disqualifies Pedro from the corruption championships, either. And let's keep in mind that money fraudulently extracted as SGAE overhead for banging hookers is taking more money out of the hands of artists in a very real way. Why do these collection groups that represent artists always seem to have so much disdain for them at the same time?

Anyway, once caught, Pedro copped to what he'd done, came clean, and faced the music like a man. Nah, just kidding, he totally tried to make up another ridiculous, but hilarious, excuse.

[The judge] also slammed the copyright expert's claims he had visited the clubs to see if there were any rights issues in terms of the music being played there. During the trial, the former SGAE executive even argued he had been framed by a detective and journalist named Cervero who was unable to appear as a witness during the trial because of serious heart problems.

The presiding judge, however, dismissed those claims as well.

But, your honor, I was only visiting the brothel to make sure none of them were playing unlicensed music to their whores. Not the most convincing argument, sir. Keep it classy SGAE.

TorrentFreak has additional details as well, about the scheme that seems extremely questionable. Basically, the accusations are that SGAE hired some "consultants" to set up a supposedly independent subsidiary. The thing is, some of those consultants were relatives of SGAE execs:

The complaint alleges that SGAE operatives set up companies and used revenue destined for artists to generate profit for themselves and their families, and that money bound for artists living abroad was diverted to personal Swiss bank accounts.

At the center of the storm is SDAE, the digital rights arm of SGAE. Although a notionally separate entity, SDAE is fully operated by SGAE. It appears that when SDAE was being set up, SGAE hired a for-profit company called Microgenesis as consultants.

Microgenesis describe themselves as “a team of specialists in engineering, consultancy and development, managed by individuals with established experience in the fields of intellectual property, as well as the culture and entertainment industries.”

Microgenesis operated a number of companies which provided various services for SGAE and SDAE, some of them suspiciously registered at SGAE/SDAE’s own office address. The problems only deepen when one learns who is behind Microgenesis.

Jose Luis Rodriguez Neri is Director General of SDAE and ex-director of SGAE. His wife, Maria Antonia Garcia Pombo, is the ex-president of Microgenesis. Partner-Chief Legal Officer of Microgenesis is Eva Garcia Pombo. She is Neri’s sister-in-law.

This all sheds additional light on SGAE's rather fanatical approach to increasing who it could collect the digital levy from. It sounds like they weren't necessarily looking for more money from artists, but potentially for themselves...

from the well-look-at-that dept

Spain is one of a few countries that actually has had pretty sane copyright laws lately. Unlike other places, it has generally felt that private, non-commercial copying of content is legal, and has also rejected the idea of placing liability on third parties. And, despite claims to the contrary from the legacy entertainment industry, there's still great content coming out of Spain (I keep getting great, new music from Spanish bands which, yes, I do pay for). However, it's been interesting to watch the big Spanish music collection agency SGAE, flail around in this environment. In its effort to go after some file sharing sites, it actually pretended two of its employees worked for the courts, and "raided" the homes of people who worked on file sharing programs. As you can imagine, that's a big no-no, and SGAE was fined. It also tried to take legal action against a competing upstart group, that was pushing for more open/copyleft/Creative Commons licensing of music.

from the the-attack-on-alternative-models-continues dept

We've already covered ASCAP's really misguided attack on Creative Commons and others who support allowing more choice and options for artists. When I was recently in Germany, I was told repeatedly that the situation there is much worse, with the collection society, GEMA, not allowing musicians who are members to even give away their own music for free (multiple musicians showed me their secret websites that offered free music, which they couldn't promote to publicly, or GEMA would go after them -- again, for offering their own music for free). It's really amazing how much these collection societies are against giving artists real options.

The latest example comes to us via Paul Keating, who alerts us to the situation in Spain, where the collection society SGAE is making a series of legal threats against the organization EXGAE, which promotes things like "copyleft" licenses and Creative Commons licensing. SGAE claims that EXGAE is infringing on the trademark on their name -- even though it certainly seems like most people can tell the difference -- and is especially pissed off that EXGAE mentions SGAE on its website. The key issue, it seems, is that SGAE says EXGAE is using SGAE as a "smear reference" and "undermining the reputation of the SGAE."

This seems like pretty blatant bullying. Trademark doesn't mean that no one can use your name without permission. And, if pointing out that there are alternatives to the way you do business is a "smear" and "undermining your reputation," you probably have bigger issues to deal with.

Once again, we're left wondering: why are so many collection societies afraid to give the musicians they claim to represent choice and options when it comes to licensing their works? As Paul also pointed out, it's pretty amazing when you think about the comparison. The industry regularly puts out misleading and false claims calling people "pirates," but EXGAE discusses more options for artists, and they're told to shut up or face legal consequences.

from the another-one-for-spain dept

We were just talking about how the justice system in Spain seems at least somewhat more reasonable on the subject of file sharing, and here's yet another example. A court has overturned injunctions on two file sharing sitesand fined the anti-piracy group that brought charges against them in the first place for "acting in bad faith." The case was dismissed because the court realized (yet again) that linking to infringing material is not infringing itself. But, the "bad faith" part involved the anti-piracy group, SGAE, tricking the operator of the sites into believing that two SGAE employees were representatives of the court and had the right to search his home and confiscate computer hard drives. We've seen such things allowed elsewhere, so it's nice that the Spanish courts are letting private anti-piracy groups know that they are not law enforcement.